The initial research problem that generated the three articles constituting this thesis was: How is knowledge for the teaching profession constructed? Emphasis has been placed on the important processes and relations that frame and develop teachers’ professional knowledge. As previously underlined, one thesis, even though it includes three analytical perspectives, cannot account for and analyze all structures and relations involved in
constructing knowledge for the teaching profession. Only some relations and structures within and between policy making, curricula content, and novice teachers were selected because they are recognized as decisive for constructing knowledge for the teaching profession. Relations and structures constitute interrelated fields and levels of activity where basic premises for teachers’ professional knowledge are constructed. As the literature review shows, there is a lack of systematic studies on policy making for teacher education,
knowledge orientations in teacher education curricula, the effects of the epistemic profiles of teacher education programs, and on structures and relations between these different contexts of activity in constructing knowledge for the teaching profession.
Article 1 shows that, policy making processes for teacher education are conducted quite differently in two different country contexts within the Nordic region. The analysis of the Finnish policy making process shows a broad, open, and time-consuming academic process, while the Norwegian one displays a tight, short, cyclical process that is steered by political ideology. The Finnish case shows interdependence between political interests and researchers/research work, resulting in trust and the possibility of mutual influence. Research knowledge is put at the forefront in the processes. The Norwegian case shows distance and a gap between policy-formulating bodies and the field of practice. Often, some kind of imbalance or ‘crisis’ initiates the political process of policy making. The analysis shows that,
as an overall policy ideology, Norway applies a state steering model for developing, regulating, and steering teacher education policies and practice, while the Finnish policy approach can be characterized a state supervision mode (Goedegebuure et al., 1994). The Norwegian model for steering teacher education denotes that governmental and political standards are set for access to and control over policy processes. The level of governmental interference is high, and political ideology figures at the forefront when changes are initiated. This kind of process implies solid confidence in governmental actors and agencies in policy making and a strong belief in a change of policy being a change in practice. The Finnish model is based on government-initiated policy processes, with a strong emphasis on academic autonomy. The government and political bodies only monitor, supervise, and give feedback in the process. A salient trust in the field of practice for setting the standards both for the process itself and for the content of the policy is visible.
Curricula content at the institutional level in both Finland and Norway is developed in close congruence with national policies (National curriculum in Norway, National
recommendations in Finland) for teacher education. Given the findings from articles 1 and 2, it could be argued that the curricula content reflects how the policy making has been conducted, who has been participating, and the character of the underlying processes. The theoretically structured content analysis shows that the Finnish research-based program emphasizes subject didactics and research competence. The program is sequentially organized and formulated in scientific language. This suggests a more pointed focus, aimed at
integrating the complex knowledge field through educational studies and research
competence. It manifests the teacher knowledge basis as scientific, unique, and distinct from everyday knowledge. The research-based program provides opportunities for an inquiry- oriented attitude towards the teaching practice. Teacher education aims not only for prospective teachers to understand a more or less given practice, but also to develop, renew, and change the teaching practice based on existing and developing educational research.
Norwegian policy for teacher education has been developed lately through frequent politically steered processes that reflect political need for improving the quality of Norwegian teachers. In the general professional program, school subject studies are emphasized; the curricula content is constructed segmentally, is practice-oriented, and is formulated mainly in everyday language. The general professional program aims to educate professionals to adopt an interpretative role in the field of practice. The most important capability for a teacher
(according to the curricula document) is to understand and interpret the practice of teaching in a historically continuous and ongoing context. The underlying assumption seems to be that the teaching profession is developed through subject knowledge and through continuity in the interpretations of and reflections on practice. The research-based program (with an emphasis on conceptual coherence, stronger disciplinary focus, and more scientifically developed concepts) is more likely to educate professionals with a strong academic identity. According to Bernstein (2000) and Muller (2009), this will influence professional identity. These professionals (in this case, teachers) will typically be better qualified to bind the social to the cognitive and to create innovative professional environments. The contextually coherent general professional program, on the other hand, has a weaker disciplinary foundation and promotes identities founded in the professional practice, rather than in the academic knowledge domain.
So how have these two different models of teacher education programs influenced novice teachers? The analysis in article 3 shows that the Finnish teachers’ knowledge relations are marked by a stronger classification and framing than the knowledge relations of Norwegian teachers. While the teachers’ knowledge relations in both cases are founded in regionalized knowledge domains, the Finnish case seems to display a stronger disciplinary or epistemological core, based in educational psychology. A critical issue in professional practice is the capability of defining the problem at hand in ways that are precise enough to provide directions for action or further exploration. The ‘definability’ of a problem may thus be understood as dependent upon its relation to a specialized knowledge discourse. As the analysis in article 3 shows, the knowledge relations brought to the fore by the Finnish teachers may allow for clearer definitions than those identified among the Norwegian teachers. The differences described also have implications for the construction of professional identities. Such identities may take different forms, relative to the type of knowledge discourse and its mechanisms of recognition. Finnish teachers seem to be more strongly connected to specialized disciplinary knowledge, which may lead to more bounded professional identities grounded in epistemic relations. The Norwegian teachers in article 3 express closer relations to the social dimensions of their work, which emphasizes problems emerging in the field of practice. In both cases, however, the teachers’ concern for their students and their practical work is evident. The difference lies in their conceptual framing of these issues and how they position themselves as professional, knowledgeable actors in the field of practice. So how can this be understood in relation to the epistemic profiles of their respective teacher education
program? Although the findings from articles 2 and 3 do not allow for causal conclusions, the differences resemble previously identified characteristics of knowledge organization in the relevant educational programs. The analysis in article 3 supports the assumption that teachers educated through the first type of curriculum are more likely to identify with a common knowledge basis, while educational programs that emphasize contextual coherence may foster greater diversity among teachers whose work is guided by a more dispersed and
individualized knowledge basis.
The overall findings of this study (as presented in this thesis) show how the construction of knowledge for the teaching profession involves contextually and societally embedded processes, and that a complex set of structures and relations are involved. The epistemic profiles of the teacher education programs can be related to who has been participating in the policy making processes, the constitution of the policy environment, and the wider institutional structures. The construction of knowledge for the teaching profession is clearly influenced by the epistemic profile of the teacher education program, as well as novice teachers’ professional orientation and knowledge relations in the teaching practice. The analysis of these two particular cases allows for the comparison of academically versus politically steered policy processes (representing two different steering approaches: state supervision versus state steering), conceptual coherence versus contextual coherence in the organization of knowledge in curricula texts, as well as the examination of knowledge affiliation among novice teachers in Finland and Norway, respectively. This means that the epistemic profiles of the teacher education programs were reflected in the novice teachers’ knowledge relations. The overall study shows that the construction of knowledge for the teaching profession is constituted by deep and complex epistemic structures, and suggests that transforming teacher education involves far more comprehensive and time-consuming processes than merely changing policy and curricula texts.
In the next two sections, I will elaborate on some new insights and possible implications of these findings for policy development and teacher education programs, respectively.